


sing me to sleep

by insonder



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Jun is homesick, Sirens, Supernatural - Freeform, Vocal team sirens, this is just an excuse to praise their voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26833618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insonder/pseuds/insonder
Summary: “Do wehavetodrownthem?”His face twisted as if what Seokmin was suggesting was too ludicrous a thought to be entertained. “They’rehumans. We’re Sirens. It’s what wedo.”
Comments: 15
Kudos: 36
Collections: Challenge 3: Supernatural





	sing me to sleep

It feels strange to breathe air, so light and thin. His wet, exposed chest is cold and glistening in the moonlight, though there’s nobody there to see it. Not in the water, not on the neighboring rocks, not on the far-off beaches. 

He’d wondered, wondered what it would feel like to let his voice saturate the thin air and make it as heavy and sweet as the water becomes when he practices. And so here he is, a day shy of eighteen years, alone on the rocks, nothing but gleaming water for miles around and pinpricks of light from a seaside city.

  
  


They would kill him if they found out.  
  


But when he senses the magic he spins with his voice, the scrape of his scales against the cold, hard rocks, disobeying his hyungs and the discomfort of being out of water is all worth it.

* * *

Jeonghan, Jihoon and Joshua had taken him with them on his seventeenth birthday.

He’d known what they did and what he, and Seungkwan, were expected to do someday. He, however, hadn’t understood how the voices which sang him to sleep every night held humans by the hand and led them to the ocean floor, lifeless. 

Jeonghan sang of dreams and fantasies. His voice carried with it rose tinted delusions of what the humans longed for. No being could resist the eerie way his wet skin glowed and the allure of his voice. They walked into the water as if Jeonghan was all they could ever want.

Jihoon's voice was the ghost of a hug and the smell of rain, cold skin trying to hold on to the warmth of a sun that had set a long time ago. He sang of times long gone, nostalgia and magic thick and cloying in his songs. The humans reached for him as if he would hold them and take them from memory to blissful memory. 

Joshua sounded like fingers gently carding through hair and a warm blanket. His voice was made of small moments, fleeting touches between lovers, rhymes and harmonies soaked in the kind of fuzzy warmth that feels like time is standing still. It was truly sad how many humans drowned for Joshua, for the false promise of love and familiarity.

Or at least, Seokmin thought so. 

Knowing it was one thing; seeing it was horrifying. To be expected to do it one day was _sickening_ .

Jeonghan had chosen rocks close to the shore that night. 

“They look so happy when they...”

Jeonghan hummed, pleased. “They do, don’t they? They die with their most desperate desires printed on the inside of their lids.” He smiled, eyes soft. “You’ll paint the prettiest smiles of all on their faces next year, Seokmin. ”

Joshua and Jihoon's voices danced around each other, almost shimmering in the air. They too seemed to think that the splash of limbs and broken gurgling was perfect accompaniment.

Seokmin shifted on the uncomfortable rock and nestled into Jeonghan. 

“Do we _have_ to _drown_ them?”

His face twisted as if what Seokmin was suggesting was too ludicrous a thought to be entertained. “They’re _humans._ We’re Sirens. It’s what we _do_.” 

* * *

No wonder the others love singing up here, Seokmin thinks.

The cold air is less dense than water; he can feel magic envelop him, tendrils going as far as his voice does to curl around a human and drag them to him. There is no sound other than his voice and silent waves.

It is _surreal._

_  
  
_

Until it’s not.

He stills, thinking that the sharp watery noise came from one of the other Sirens, but then he sees a small- what is it called? Foot? Sticking out of the water.

  
  


It’s amazing how he dives and doesn’t immediately plummet like an anchor, given how heavy his heart feels.

He’s a Siren, but he wouldn’t be able to _live_ with himself if he was responsible for a death.

How could this happen? The farthest cluster of rocks Seokmin knows- not that he knows much about the surface- 

The human is _beautiful_ and _incredibly_ heavy. 

He drags him towards the rocks and prays, _prays_ that he isn’t dead. The silence, which had felt ethereal, now feels like a weight crushing him like he’s too deep under water. It drags on, and with each passing moment, Seokmin feels something change, something swell and make the rings of cartilage of his throat want to snap.

He hesitantly strokes the human’s sharp nose, square jaw and shut eyes, hums the broken tune of a lullaby to him. 

Something hot builds up in his eyes and throat and he cradles the human’s head in his arms. Hunches over him, and when the skin stays cold and nothing moves, lets loose a broken sob. 

So loud is he that he almost misses the raspy whisper, “It sounded like home.”

“W-what?”

“You’re a Siren, aren’t you? ” The human coughs up water and makes a pained noise. “They say that you sing of impossible things people desire and kill them. Will you sing to me?”

Seokmin doesn’t know what to say, how to process what is going on. The silence stretches thin, and they’re both crying. 

“Don’t you want to get away from me?”

“I want to go home.” His body convulses weakly as a fit of coughs wrecks him. “When I was walking on the beach, for a moment, the breeze smelled like the sea does in Shenzhen. It was warm and bright like balmy sunshine warming me to my bones. Please, I just,” his voice cracks, “I want to be there again.”

Seokmin sobs even harder, and says, “You’ll want to drown for me. I could _kill_ you.”

  
  
  


The other gives him a smile and whispers, “Then sing me to sleep.”


End file.
